Frederick the Great post links

[cahn]

More Frederick the Great (henceforth "Fritz") and surrounding spinoffs history! Clearly my purpose in life is now revealed: it is to encourage mildred_of_midgard and selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:

* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history

* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."


Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the movies because still mainlining Nirvana in Fire):
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments

ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!

Comments

Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd

[selenak]

Essay writer was male, which was no big surprise. There's also the fact that the "chill, generous" things Fritz had to say about MT were incredibly condescending; if the writer really wanted MT to have said something similar about Fritz, it would have had to be:

"The King of Prussia can keep it in his pants. Most men can't, and waste a lot of money and time on getting laid, but not him. He brought honor to his sex, and he's got more than one talent."

...somehow I think Fritz would have been happier with what she actually said about him...

Re: Napoleon, considering that I can't recall him being similarly complimentary about, say, Wellington, I think you're onto something. (Whereas Wellington, once Napoleon was safely dead, replied to the question who the greatest military leader of their age had been: "In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon."

(Now there's a set up for an epic rap battle - Fritz vs Napoleon - who'd win?)

Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd

[mildred_of_midgard]

LOLOLOL, MT, you missed your chance! That would have been hilarious.

The funniest part is that, leaving out the part about writing off an entire sex, Fritz actually *was* kind of proud of being able to keep it in his pants and not waste a lot of money and time getting laid, haha. The *facepalm*y part was where he decided both Louis XV's and Catherine II's politically active favorites were proof that women were unfit for ruling, because...logic fail.

Ah, yes, Wellington's quote. In his case, I think it's not only that Napoleon was safely dead, but also, if you've *beaten* the greatest military commander, it makes you look extra awesome.

Which reminds me of the exchange attributed to Hannibal and Scipio:

Scipio: So, who are the greatest generals of history?
Hannibal: Alexander, then Pyrrhus, then me.
Scipio: Hahahaha, lol forever, and where would you have ranked yourself if you'd actually managed to beat *me*?

(Now there's a set up for an epic rap battle - Fritz vs Napoleon - who'd win?)

LOL! Fritz wins! He has the flute. Check out the polls for the episode Fritz was in. On the official poll, current votes are

- Ivan the Terrible: 751
- Alexander the Great: 1021
- Frederick the Great: 5267
- Catherine the Great: 1996

Fritz by a landslide! I also found this unofficial straw poll someone put together hilarious:

- Frederick the Great: 38
- Catherine the Great: 7
- Old Fritz's flute: 6
- Ivan the Terrible: 4
- Pompey the Great: 4
- Alexander the Great: 3

Catherine's gotten one vote since the last time I checked. When I found this poll, Fritz was in first and his flute was tied for second, which made me laugh a lot.

So I say Napoleon doesn't stand a chance. (In his actual rap battle, it looks like he beat Napoleon Dynamite.)

Real life battle/war? Man, this is something I've been thinking about lately, and gotten super annoyed because I studied Napoleon's campaigns about as closely as Fritz's back in the day, but haven't looked at them in 20 years, and so I no longer remember enough detail to make informed comparisons. And for the same reasons I'm not up to doing MT research, Napoleon research is out of the question.

My impression is that Napoleon was the far superior tactician, but Fritz won his wars through a variety of other skills and personality traits, and I think he would have put up much more of a fight after his defeats than Napoleon got from the Prussians in real life. However, any time I try to do an actual "Who would win?" I run into AU world-building problems. How old and decrepit is Fritz? How long has he been king? A Fritz born in 1778 and just getting started is a world of difference from a Fritz who manages to live to 94 years old and somehow still be alive and active.

Is the oblique order new and surprising or old hat to Europe? Is Fritz in the middle of trying to hold Silesia? What does the political scene of Europe look like? I get the impression Fritz has more allies in this AU than in the Seven Years' War, because people are a wee bit more worried about Napoleon, but how well does Fritz play the political game and does he piss off all of his allies? Does he underestimate Napoleon as badly as he underestimated his real-life foes? Etc.

Someday I may have opinions rather than questions. Right now all I have is questions.

Definitely Old Fritz in the rap battle, though. He's got creative talents and battle malice. ;)

Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd

[cahn]

What I think:

Napoleon: I have superior battle tactics! *wins lots of battles*
Fritz: Yeah, but NO ONE can out-stubborn me! *grimly holds on like a terrier until Napoleon folds*

Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd

[mildred_of_midgard]

That's what I think!

That plus Napoleon and Alexander were so battle-and-territory focused that they never put together something that was going to last. If Alexander had lived a bit longer, I think we would have seen some catastrophic empire-holding-together failures.

Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd

[mildred_of_midgard]

I mean, this is pretty much the Seven Years' War.

Heinrich: I am clearly the superior tactician in this family. Can you 1) listen to me before battles, 2) make peace already, even if it means giving up some territory?
Fritz the Terrier: No and NO!

One of Fritz's contemporaries said about him, "It is in adversity that he shines; when he is really down, he has an irresistible buoyancy."